1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to information processing systems and, more specifically, to a mechanism to track the oldest exception event for in-flight instructions in a processor.
2. Background Art
In response to market demand for increased processor performance, various techniques have been employed. One such technique is out-of-order instruction execution. Out-of -order execution is a microarchitectural enhancement that allows a processor to pull instructions into the pipeline, out of program order, in order to keep the pipeline as full as possible. The processor thus re-orders instructions and executes them as quickly as their inputs are ready, without regard to original program order. Architectural state for the instructions is committed in program order. Likewise, fault, trap or other exception events or architectural events that occur during out-of-order execution of instructions are taken in program order.